1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a method of enhancing a video presentation, and more particularly, to a method of synchronizing a virtual addition to a video sequence with a real event in real time.
2. Background Art
The invention relates to enhancing live broadcasts, particularly of sporting events. Virtual enhancements of such events has become commonplace in many sports and they add to both the advertising potential of the events and to the viewers understanding and enjoyment of the event. One particularly successful and popular virtual enhancement is the virtual yellow line that is now a staple of televised football games. Making a theoretical line visible allows even those not fully conversant with the rules of the game able to immediately grasp the objective of the current play.
To make such virtual enhancements even more interesting to the viewers, a method of making virtual characters appear to interact with events happening in the real world has been developed, i.e., virtual agents appear not merely to be in the image, but to be causally interacting with other, real objects in the event being televised.
3. Description of the Related Art
The relevant prior art involving virtual video insertion includes:
US Patent Application 20070197247 published by E. Inselberg on Aug. 23, 2007 entitled “Method and apparatus for interactive participation at a live entertainment event” that describes a method and apparatus that provide interactive participation at live entertainment events. Enjoyment for a plurality of participants is enhanced. Participants employ wireless interactive devices that present a promotional message and include user input and output interfaces. Participants are queried, and enter wagers via the user input interface. The wagers are transmitted to a central processor, stored as participant data, and processed into results. A visual display or the user output interface announces the results to the participants.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,264,933 issued to Rosser, et al. on Nov. 23, 1993 entitled “Television displays having selected inserted indicia” that describes an apparatus and method of altering video images to enable the addition of images, message, slogans or indicia in such a manner that they appear to be part of the original image as displayed. The application of the apparatus and method is particularly adapted to be used as advertising during sporting events or other events whereby an operator selects a portion of the video image display (16) such as a portion of a tennis court (12) recognizes the selected portion (17) and inserts a logo or advertising message (27) into that selected portion. The message is inserted into the selected portion of the court independent of how the scene is being panned or viewed by the television camera. The apparatus employs a pattern recognition algorithm such as the Burt Pyramid Algorithm to recognize the specific selected image portion and by means of the image processor (17, 20 and 27) substitute the logo into the first image (16) to provide a display which appears as if the inserted image was actually painted on or otherwise permanently positioned on the court. Thus the inserted images are seamlessly and realistically incorporated into the original even as the original scene is moved, panned, magnified, zoomed or otherwise altered in size or perspective. The resulting composite image appears to the television viewer to be absolutely real and present at the scene.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,750,919 issued to Rosser on Jun. 15, 2004 entitled “Event linked insertion of indicia into video” that describes a system and method for placing event related information into a video broadcasting so that the added information does not interfere with or obscure the primary action of interest in the broadcast. The disclosed information could be implemented by using instructions from an event information gathering system to trigger the display of one of an appropriate set of pre-rendered animations in the broadcast video via a well known live video insertion system (48). The disclosed invention envisages the animation sequence having at least two parts (FIG. 4), namely a core or base sequence (34) which is always used, and a mid or a variable sequence (56, 58, 60) which is changed according to the actual data that needs to be displayed. The live video insertion system data (48) and processing may be used to perform occlusion, and/or tracking to either make the event information display look as if it is part of the scene, or merely to occlude the display when event action would otherwise be obscured, or to turn off or reposition, or resize the display when event action otherwise be obscured.
Various implements are known in the art, but fail to address all of the problems solved by the invention described herein. One embodiment of this invention is illustrated in the accompanying drawings and will be described in more detail herein below.